Re: GDP predefined commands

[Graham Percival]

Mats Bengtsson wrote:
> Isn't the main points of this discussion that: - Predefined commands
> like \fatText should be described in the NR. Even if the
> implementation of it might change over the years, the semantics will
> remain the same.

Yes.  "\fatText: pushes the next note to the right to allow the complete
piece of markup to be printed before that note."   (or whatever -- that
description was badly worded and possibly incorrect; I can't remember
what it does)

> - Somewhere in the NR, it should be described how an advanced user 
> can find the exact implementation of these predefined commands, in
> case he/she wants to do something similar but on another object, for
> example.
>
> - On the other hand, the exact definition should not be
> copied verbatim into the NR (perhaps with the exception of one single
> example in the description mentioned in the previous item), since as
> Graham points out, the information may easily get outdated.

Yes, with one quirk: the LM/NR division.

The current "changing defaults" doesn't make anybody happy.  It's too 
verbose for programmers (or people who are already familiar with it, but 
can't remember certain details), but much too short for first-time 
readers.  So we're going to compact that chapter in the NR, and expand 
the relevant chapter in the LM.

By analogy, consider the man pages in unix.  If you've never used a 
command before -- say, git :)  -- then the man pages are useless.  You 
can't learn how to use git just from reading the man pages.  You need to 
read a tutorial, web pages, etc.

OTOH, if you're already familiar with the basic concepts, and just can't 
remember if you want
        git-diff -M --cached
or
        git-diff -B HEAD
then the man pages are great.

NR is a reference to look stuff up; LM is for learning the material in 
the first place.

Cheers,
- Graham